New England Road Trip – Final Destination, Bates College

This post is the final posting in the series, New England Road Trip. (Photo credit for cover photo:  Margaret Trombly)

After 5 days of roaming around New England, visiting, sight-seeing and enjoying some vacation time, at long last we arrived at the main destination of the trip.

Our daughter Margaret was wrapping up freshman year at my alma mater, Bates College.  It was weird to see what had always been “my” college now clearly “her” college!

We pulled in on a Wednesday afternoon and met all the roommates and friends.  Thanks to social media, I felt like I had been watching a reality show all year and now I was getting to meet the stars!  We met Sophia and Talia, Jenny and Beanie, Kate and Mel, Madeline, Maria, and numerous other lovely young women.  They had all clearly bonded throughout the year and hanging in the air was the dark cloud of having to say goodbye in the next 24 hours.

That evening we were treated to a modern dance show in which Margaret performed.  Each of about a dozen acts was some interesting interpretation of music, a story, a dance style.  It was great!  I had the added nostalgia of being in the Bates theater again after over 30 years.  Margaret’s piece called upon her years of Irish Dancing.  She took traditional Irish folk dance and set it to modern music.  It was so rewarding to see her friends–and the whole audience–go crazy for her performance!

The next day we packed everything up and had a little extra time to hit some of the legendary spots from “my” Bates College.

We hit the Blue Goose, or, “the Goose”.  When I was at Bates there was no campus pub and alcohol was not served (officially) on campus.  The folks at the Goose were not real sticklers for things like ID’s and age-checks and it became the place to be.  It’s a tiny shop-worn dive bar and I practically wept when I saw it!

Then we hit Luiggi’s.  This humble pizza and sandwich shop is next to the Goose and we would always bring our pizza into the Goose.  They had this sandwich called the Fergy.  It was basically a ham sandwich with lettuce and mayo but that does not even begin to describe the sublime pleasure that was the Fergy.

We visited the SueMac bench, a class tribute to our dear friend Sue MacNeil who passed away.  The bench is on a peaceful gorgeous spot and is surrounded by rhododendrons.

We walked the Quad and visited the Bates Chapel.  It was a beautiful day and we had enjoyed a great trip.  That night we took Margaret and her roommates out to dinner and the next morning there were tearful good-byes.  We made one last stop in New York City to visit a Bates classmate of mine (that will be another post).

I have taken all summer long to write about these 6 days in May, and now it is almost time to bring Margaret back to Bates!  There will be 3 more years of trips to New England so if I missed s spot you would like to hear about, stay tuned.  Definitely on the list is the one cousin I did not visit!  Katie, I’m headed to Exeter, NH on the next trip!

In the meantime, what New England cities would you like to see featured?

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